REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
The world's use of solar power is growing at an unprecedented rate. That's good news for the planet, but in many countries, this boom isn't environmentally motivated. In Nigeria, for instance, solar is simply more reliable – and increasingly more affordable, too.
Tasiu Umar repairs a phone in his shop in Zing, Nigeria, where electricity is supplied via solar panels, Aug. 22, 2025. Ogar Monday
|Zing, Nigeria
Tasiu Umar had a problem. The power in his cellphone repair shop was constantly going out. The clanking, wheezing generators he used as a stopgap guzzled fuel and constantly broke down, gnawing into his profits. “I spent more time fixing the generator than fixing phones,” he says, laughing.
Then, a year ago, a former boss suggested he buy a couple of solar panels. He did, and business boomed.
Though Mr. Umar didn’t know it, he switched to solar at a moment that many view as a turning point in global energy history. As solar panels have become more affordable, the world’s use of solar power has nearly tripled in the past three years. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2035, solar will be the world’s No. 1 source of energy.
The shift to solar suggests a revolutionary possibility for countries like Nigeria: the chance to industrialize and grow without following the high-emissions path that has worsened global warming.
This represents a massive change, both in the source of electricity, and in who can generate and use it. Because solar power can be produced anywhere, by anyone with a solar panel, “it gives power directly to people,” says Femi Oye, co-founder of OneWattSolar and an advocate for solar power in Nigeria.
Ogar MondayA small solar panel is mounted on the roof of Tasiu Umar’s cellphone repair shop in Zing, Nigeria, providing power that helps him stay open longer, Aug. 22, 2025.Nigeria is a stark example of how transformative that shift in power could be.
As Africa’s top oil and gas producer, the country is rich in the very fossil fuels that have traditionally kept the world’s lights on. But its power infrastructure is in shambles. Some 40% of the country’s 230 million people are not even connected to the national grid. And those who do have a connection are hardly better off. In 2024, the national grid collapsed more than 10 times.
Unreliable electricity has profound ripple effects here. Clinics struggle to keep lights on and equipment running, so vaccines spoil and fewer women get medical care during their pregnancies than in neighboring countries. Without electricity to provide light in the evenings, students in Nigerian boarding schools study about half as much as their peers in China. And farmers lose enough food to feed millions of people each year, simply because they have no way to keep their products cool on the way to market. Overall, the World Bank estimates that unreliable electricity costs the Nigerian economy about $25 billion annually.
To fill the gaps, Nigerians like Mr. Umar have long relied on diesel and petrol generators that roar day and night, spewing thick fumes. Nigerians spend $14 billion annually on running these belching machines, which in the city of Lagos alone release the equivalent of 39 million metric tons of CO₂ each year – as much as about 8.5 million cars.
Sunday Alamba/AP/FileA student in Ibadan, Nigeria, answers a question on a white board, May 28, 2024. The lack of reliable electricity severely impacts education and businesses in Nigeria.
Globally, those figures are small change. And as a continent, Africa accounts for less than 4% of the world’s emissions. But its population is growing rapidly, creating increased pressure for development – and the energy that powers it. Between 1990 and 2018, fossil-fuel related greenhouse gas emissions grew more than twice as fast in Africa as in the rest of the world.
The owners of Nigeria’s generators are also buffeted by forces beyond their control. In Nigeria, like much of the world, power – that is, energy – and power – that is, authority – have long been impossible to disentangle. The struggle over Nigeria’s oil and gas supply has launched civil wars, propped up dictatorships, and fueled coup d’etats. Despite the vast energy wealth all around them, most Nigerians are both energy and cash poor.
Solar, by contrast, is nearly impossible to hoard, and the barriers to access are personal, rather than political. It doesn’t matter “whether or not the grid reaches [someone’s] village,” Mr. Oye notes. All that matters is that they can buy solar panels, something that is becoming dramatically easier. In 2023, the price of solar panels from China – where most of the world’s supply originates – dropped by more than 40%.
That year, African countries imported nearly three times as many solar panels as they had the year before. In the last year, they have grown another 60%.
That boom has been led by South Africa, where households and businesses have gone DIY on energy as their national grid buckles. As in Pakistan – where individuals armed with TikTok “how-to” videos installed half the national grid capacity in solar panels last year alone – most of South Africa’s solar revolution has been bottom-up. Privately installed rooftop solar panels now generate more than twice as much solar energy as the national grid does.
That mirrors a wider trend. Two-thirds of new solar installations in Africa are private. In Nigeria – now Africa’s second largest importer of Chinese solar panels – privately installed solar “is quietly becoming the backbone” of many businesses, Mr. Oye says.
While farmers improve their harvests with better irrigation and small businesses like Mr. Umar’s cellphone repair shop extend their opening hours, several major Nigerian banks now run solar-powered ATMs and branches. A major telecom company is installing solar panels on hundreds of rural cell towers.
The national government also sees the potential. It levies no duty on solar panel imports, and made them tax exempt in 2020. It has slowly begun installing off-grid solar panels to power universities, hospitals, and rural communities.
Despite this momentum, however, challenges remain.
A basic home solar system often costs more than a month’s income for low-income families, and many are hesitant to take out loans to access the tech. Financing also is a major hurdle for large-scale solar projects. About two-thirds of energy investments in Africa still go to fossil fuels. Loans for solar from international lenders could also saddle the world’s poorest countries with even more debt, warns Tengi George-Ikoli, Nigeria country manager of the Natural Resource Governance Institute.
But for Mr. Umar in Zing, solar is already a game changer. On a recent evening, his shop glowed under a single bulb powered by his rooftop panels. Outside, the rest of the street sat in darkness: the grid was out again.
Inside, Umar worked quietly, fixing a phone while two customers waited – one to charge a phone, another to collect his repaired one.
Through it all, the lights stayed on.
Page created on 10/7/2025 6:32:27 PM
Last edited 10/7/2025 6:40:12 PM
